The last couple of days have been great, good weather which also enabled us to get some much needed maintenance work done to the van. It’s hard to believe we are only now tackling some jobs that were on our must do list 5 months ago when we first left Stanthorpe🙄🙄 We still have a week before starting work again so will try a little harder to get things done.

Yesterday we re visited Queen Mary Falls, it’s such a wow place, I don’t think I could ever get sick of walking around the falls circuit, there’s really something magical about this place.

King of the pond, at the base of Queen Mary Falls

More birds from our second visit to the Falls

Our second visit to the Falls

Bell Birds aka Bell Miners seem to dominate the Goomburra section of The Main Range

Other birds of Goomburra

click or press on image for larger view

Today we managed to get up extra early and take a drive out to the Main Range National Park . This park is enormous and so many great parts to it but we went to the Goomburra Section about 45 minutes drive from Warwick. We had been there once before but it was in winter and today it was just beautiful after the rain they have had , it’s so nice and green and all the creeks are running. The drive there is nice too, lots of cattle and horse studs, beautiful country quite some kms before even getting to the park. It seems it’s calving and foal time, we saw so many gorgeous little baby animals, always a treat for me. I filmed one of the mares with her new foal,just beautiful to watch, it’s at the end of my video. The birdlife in the park was fantastic, soon as we got out the truck we could hear so many different birds and the Bell Miner birds were so loud. There’s a few walks here, we didn’t take any lunch so only did a small walk around Dalrymple Creek which was really nice. Next time we will definetly pack a picnic and make a day of it but we really had to do some shopping today as well so had to come back early.

A newly emerged (Teneral) Arrowhead Rockmaster Damselfy

Crazy Metalart on way too Goomburra

Goomburra

Tomorrow we have the big trip back to Stanthorpe. It’s only about 40 minutes drive. Work is looming, we are trying to delay it as long as possible, holidays are really hard to give up. There’s a couple of really nice National Parks south a bit so we are hoping we have time to visit those. Enjoy all the amazing pics and 2 videos this time.

Well thanks anyway but I guess all that finger crossing didn’t help us. We ended up at the Canungra Showgrounds for 4 days pretty much just sitting in the rain. In fact it seemed like most of the heavy rain was making a beeline straight for us so any outings to the Lamington Ranges was definetly out and we just sat there watching the grounds slowly turn into a lake. Riveting.😳😳 We did grab our brollies a couple of times and walk into the town, this is a beautiful picturesque place normally and thankfully the rain turned a bit more patchy on our last day so we could at least pack up the awning while it was dry. We also walked around the Showgrounds which backs onto a very nice creek that was fairly flowing with all that rain. We saw a couple of ducklings caught up in the raging torrent, we couldn’t do anything to save them, they sped by so fast, the parents were flying over quacking like crazy, we just hope they all met up again a few miles down the river where the current hopefully eased off a bit. Horrible, we never think of the animals getting caught up in this torrential rain and the rivers rising so rapidly.

Noisy Friarbird, Durikai State Forest, Warwick Region

Some other birds sited at Durikai State Forest

We have been in Warwick a couple of days now and the days have been good, very cloudy and ripper storms coming through in the afternoon, but the worst ones have just skimmed past us like we have a magic shield on so we hope that continues. There’s a lot of hail, big winds and torrential rain around.

We found a nice little Billabong at Durikai State Forest just west of here towards Karara. The birds were chirping like crazy, it really lifted our spirits, so many honeyeaters there but they were very wary of us. We were very quiet and sneaky but they were on to us and soon as we got near them they flew off to another part of the Billabong. One of those collapsible bird hides would have been great here.

This was a tough selfie. Had to tie the camera to a tree branch and scramble back down in the allotted 10 second timer 😳

Queen Mary Falls, Killarney Queensland

The stunning Female Satin Bowerbird

Click or press on bird for larger view

Leslie Dam, The Billabong & Queen Mary Falls

‘A Dragon in the mist’ A young Eastern Water Dragon at the base of the Falls

More Eastern Water Dragons

Today we drove to Queen Mary Falls, about 40 minutes drive east. We have been there many times and it’s a fantastic place. The afternoons always seem better there as the sun is on the waterfall and today was a lot of birds out and about and so many of the Water Dragons. I just love them, each one is different depending on how they are camouflaged so Anthony got some great photos and I got some great video of two squabbling over something…maybe the best rock to view the falls from😁😁

It’s one of our favourite places to visit. Please enjoy the pics and video,

Very Exciting, as this is our first (Image) capture of this normally elusive Noisy Pitta at Mount Warninglyrebird trail, Mt. Warning

Lyrebird Trail, Mt Warning

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Well this is our third night at the Murwillumbah Showgrounds and the sites here are very much in the open. Our first day was really hot, around 30 degrees and the sun was following the back of the van around so poor Chloe couldn’t sleep in her tunnel out to the cat enclosure. She was quite distressed about it and kept yowling at us to do something, we already had the aircon going and the fan but she has really taken to sleeping in the tunnel till night time. We had storms that night and we couldn’t believe she was still out there with thunder and lightning. She is one strange cat😼😼

The weather turned bad and now it’s like winter again. Long pants and jumpers on today. We have been driving to Uki where there is a fabulous cafe and a really cute little town. Then on to the Wollumbin National Park (Mt Warning)where you can climb Mount Warning, which we have done in the past and it’s fantastic but certainly wouldn’t try with storms around and the mountain top has been covered in clouds the last two days.

We have just been slowly walking around the base of the mountain where there is some beautiful rainforest with enormous trees. We were super lucky to spot a pair of Noisy Pittas and after watching them for a while we noticed where they were building a nest under some roots of a very big tree. We didn’t want to disturb them too much but over the last few days I did get some video, though it’s so dark in that forest with the black clouds hanging around and Anthony got some amazing photos. The Russet tailed Thrush was a new bird for us and we did see a few other birds around there which was amazing considering the weather. We had to run to the truck a few times when some heavy showers came through. It’s certainly a beautiful spot there. The Whip birds were going crazy, you can hear them through out my video but we looked and looked but couldn’t see them at all even though they were so close.

Wollumbin NP (Mt Warning)

Noisy Pitta collecting nesting material

Only a couple of sightings with very bad light

Great coffee and EB’s at Uki Cafe

Mount Warning

We are hoping that tomorrow morning it’s not raining so we can pack up and move on. We can pack up in the rain but it’s the biggest pain, also climbing on the roof to stow the cat enclosure is a bit risky when it’s so wet. Every where we look on the weather radar it appears to be raining or will be raining in the next few days so that’s a bit depressing for us sun seekers. Also we can’t believe we are back to having the heater on, crazy weather 🤨🤨🤨Enjoy the pics and video, Anthony is super proud of his Pitta photos, he did a bit of slippery rock climbing down the stream to keep track of them. Please keep your fingers crossed for the weather tomorrow. Cheers,

Today we hitched up and headed back to the coast. Anthony found a nice caravan park in a place called Woombah, in the Yamba region and the bigger town of Iluka is just up the road. We got here around lunch time, so after setting up and cuppochinos we headed out to explore. We only got as far as the Iluka Bluff, a fantastic headland with a great lookout. We just got to the top of the steps and were greeted by a Brahminy and Whistling Kite hovering very close over our heads. Just another WOW factor. The sky was so blue and not much wind. There’s a rocky ledge that comes out from the headland so we made our way down there and next thing a Brahminy Kite lands in front of us and starts ripping into this big dead fish laying on the rocks. To top it off there were Whales breaching just of the coast, incredible. The Brahminy took off after having a feast and instantly two Sea Eagles came soaring over the headland together…. I mean who ever gets to see two Sea Eagles soaring over their heads, lucky lucky us🤩🤩 We instantly thought they might come down to feast on the fish as well so we were quickly trying to move away, and get in a better position for photos and at the same time a couple were walking from the other direction also into the fish zone and before we could even think …….one of the eagles dived down around the backs of this couple and snatched up the fish prize and flew off into the sunset. We just stood there a bit stunned as we both missed a fantastic video and photos. The couple were hardly even aware that they were witness to an amazing act of nature and were more engrossed in their selfies in front of the waves. Wow people sure are funny.

Brahminy Kite guarding its prey

The very Majestic Sea-Eagle

Iluka Bluff Snippets

Pelican Flyby

Pelican Flyby

We ran out of time to explore further, tomorrow’s another day and there’s plenty more to see. The weather is looking good for the next few days so we can’t wait. Bye for now,

Well we found a nice spot to stay in Grafton. It’s called The Gateway Lifestyle Grafton, fancy name and not that many caravan sites as it’s mostly taken up by the lifestyle village. But the sites are nice and roomy and very manicured and not expensive. Today we drove out towards a place called Lawrence around 20 kms away, getting quite close to The Clarence River along the way which is just a massive river system. Just before you get to Lawrence you turn off and follow another smaller river called Sportsman’s creek which then goes into another smaller creek called Woody creek and really there is quite a lot of birdlife all along this river system.

Apparently when it floods they get around 70 Brolgas come to visit and numerous Jabirus but there hasn’t been a lot of rain so we weren’t expecting to see those sort of birds. But we did see a Wedge Tailed Eagle and quite a few Whistling Kites. It’s very open farmland around there but lots of big dead trees and trees along the creek. Pretty much all the hollows in the dead trees were taken up by the Lorikeets, they certainly know prime real estate when they see it. We spotted the Restless Flycatchers a few times, their chattering call is fantastic, eventually we spotted the pair building a nest hanging over the creek which we would never have seen if they weren’t there together.There were kingfishers and lots of Superb fairy wrens and numerous other birds, we had a fantastic morning exploring these swamps. We probably could have walked further but it was pretty hot by lunch time around 28 degrees and guess which Wally didn’t take a hat 😳😳 We wouldn’t mind visiting again but will have to see how the weather goes as parts of the track going in would turn to mud with a bit of rain…..which has arrived by the way.

Press or click NPWS logo for detailed information about this area

Restless Flycatcher

Restless Flycatcher

Eastern Water Dragon BaskingRainbow Lorikeet

Click or press image for larger view

Everlasting Swamp NP

We will probably check out Grafton town tomorrow if it’s still raining.

Hello everyone, we moved our van from Grassy Head to Bellingen Showgrounds on Saturday. The school holidays were starting for NSW which means all the coastal caravan parks pretty much double their prices, so time for us to bail out. We have to slowly make our way back to Stanthorpe now, our Apple thinning job starts around the start of November and there’s still plenty of nature hot spots we want to check out on the way. The last few days we have been revisiting our favourite spots, like Urunga Boardwalk and Bongil Bongil NP and Nambucca. We could easily spend a lot more time down here, still many places we never got to see so we will definetly have to come back and explore some more.

The Showgrounds here in Bellingen are a cheaper option to camp and nice too, you can walk into the town easily and also straight over the road to the Bat Island. Most people would cringe at walking through a patch of forest so full of thousands of fruit bats but we thought it was pretty awesome. It’s great that they are tolerated here and have a nice place to roost during the day. Most councils are always under pressure from the public to move them on……God only know where too, well maybe we are just kooky and spooky but we love seeing happy bats of all sizes.

Grey-headed Flying foxes on Bellingen Island

Beautiful colours of the Wompoo Fruitdove

Other birds captured over the last couple of days

Last critter snippets from the Mid North Coast

It was great to finally see Dragonflies emerge

There is some rainy weather coming so we hope we can dodge around it somehow. We really love the blue sky for our photos. Tomorrow we will head up to Grafton only a couple of hours drive but Chloe our cat is still getting used to the travelling side of things so don’t want to do too big a trip. Enjoy the pics and video,